Author: Simon Palmer

Summer is here and whilst many companies temporarily allow a relaxation in their dress codes during the warmer months, at Goldfish.ie we’ve decide to permanently adopted a casual dress code. Our CEO Gordon has wholeheartedly taken this approach on board by even getting rid of all his suits and ties. Yes, all of them. They’ve all been donated to St. Vincent de Paul.

Gordon doesn’t need his suits and ties anymore as Goldfish.ie is not a ‘suited and booted’ company. So they were just taking up much-need wardrobe space. During the hot spell Ireland has been having Gordon has even been wearing shorts to the office, as have many of his staff. We’ve even a hashtag on Twitter #shortswatch monitoring this bare-legged approach.

Gordon O’Neill says: “Being a modern company is not just about having modern products or services, you also need to have modern working practices. Too often Ireland is seen as being behind the times or slow to catch up – this needs to change. At Goldfish.ie we have a very relaxed approach to our dress code, so my suits were just gathering dust and taking up space. I’ve sacked my suits, so I’m asking companies to join our campaign and sack their suits too. It will help them modernise and in doing so will also benefit a good cause.”

We are now asking all out customers to sack their suits too. We’ve already modernised their telecoms and now it is time to modernise their dress codes. For any company that wants to take part we’ll send them some St Vincent de Paul sacks to fill.

There is a wider case though, as relaxed dress code can boost productivity and aid staff-retention. Here is a bit more of our thinking:

5 Reasons To Sack The Suit

1. It’s 2016 stop dressing like a gangster from the 1920s.

2. It’s the summer, no one should be subjected to wearing a suit and tie. Formal attire is hot to work in and can be uncomfortable, which leads to a drop in productivity.

3. It makes good business sense: suits and ties strangle creative thinking and harm business development. To be creative you need to be relaxed and you can’t do that dressed as a stiff. There is a reason creative companies have relaxed working practices.

4. It’s also good for recruitment: staff like to be in companies where they are treated like adults, instead of made to dress like school kids; you’ll find it easier to recruit good staff if you have a modern working environment.

5. The cost: formal attire is expensive and wears out quickly. Your staff will appreciate you for not making them buy expensive clothes that they only wear for work, weddings and funerals.

How can companies join Sack The Suit?

We are in the process of agree a charity as a partner on the campaign, but until then they can just give us a call on 016876996 and we will get some sacks sent out to them.

One day I will get around to writing an article about the day I met Donald Trump, in his office, in Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in New York. But, until then I’ve been writing about some of the great insights gleamed from The Sales & Marketing Summit. Last week I focused on how Charles Darwin was an accidental web designer. This week I’d like to focus on how simple Donald Trump is 🙂

The need for simplicity was a re-occurring theme during the Summit and something that has been preached by marketers since the dawn of the sector. You are probably familiar with the acronym in the title of this article KISS i.e. ‘keep it simple, stupid’, which has been around since the 1960s (when it was first invented by an engineer on the Lockheed spy plane). It is just as important fifty years later and maybe more so in the digital age, where you can be restricted to only 140 characters.

Like him or, more than likely, loath him, there is no denying that Trump is a master communicator. Trump’s success was covered in a great presentation at the Summit by Marshall Kingston, Brand Manager at Kepak.

Marshall pointed out that Trump resonates with people because he keeps things simple. This applies to not only what he says, but how he says it. He goes to great lengths to keep things as simple as possible, so much so that he rarely even uses words of more than two syllables. Ironically Mexico and America are some of the few three syllable words he says. It’s true too, watch one of his speeches and count his words of more than two syllables. Other than names you’ll struggle to find them. I can’t believe I never noticed this.

Keeping it simple is one of the most important, if not THE most important, rules of communication. Trump ensures that by keeping what he says simple, the result is that as many people as possible can understand him. This is why he is such a hit with working class Republicans and those that are less-educated. He is probably one of the few politicians they understand because he doesn’t try and make himself look, and sound, intelligent, by using complicated phrases or words; just the opposite in fact.

Trump’s approach to communication can be summed up beautifully by one of his most famous sayings, which he loves repeating. He’s famous for saying that he“used to call people incompetent, but now he just calls them stupid”. The term ‘incompetent’ is ambiguous and subjective, because different people will have different views on what they judge to be incompetent. But everyone knows what stupid means, so there’s no confusion – it a hit with people. It also means he’s gone from using a four syllable word to a two syllable word. Genius.

Over my career I have always stood by the mantra that you should never use three words when two will suffice. I suppose this can also apply to syllables too.

I was at the Sales and Marketing Summit in Dublin this week. It was held in the RDS alongside Tech Connect, which is attempting to fill part of the very large gap left by the Web Summit. The good weather afforded by this time of year was certainly an advantage and there was a great line up of speakers, with some excellent case studies to discuss.

It was fascinating hear about the different techniques people use for digital marketing. What has worked and, just as important, what has not worked. There were some common themes that kept emerging during the day, which I thought it would be helpful to summarise in a series of articles.

One presentation that I loved was by a Frenchman called Louis Grenier, who is fighting the good fight helping organisations improve their websites in order to boost sales. He started his presentation with an image of a statue of Charles Darwin, which thoroughly confused the audience and made them chuckle when the first words he said were: “I suppose you are wondering why the fuck I have put an image of Charles Darwin on the screen for a presentation on web design?”

Why indeed. After all, why would a nineteenth century naturalist be relevant to 21st century website design? Well, it turns out he is and it is because of lions. Yes lions. Mostly due to the way the pesky creatures would creep up behind us before they pounced on us.

The result of this big-cat skullduggery was that humans evolved their peripheral vision. Well, the ones that didn’t get eaten did. So much so that we can often see things on the periphery, before we see things directly in front us. This is why the most important elements on a website should always be around the edge of the screen, as this is where we see things first.

I can’t remember if this was part of Grenier’s presentation, or another one I saw, but A/B testing has also shown that we see faces first when we are presented with a new page. This allows organisations to use faces to direct a user towards important elements of the webpage i.e. have the face looking at a sign-up page.

More so, we see faces that are looking at us first, which is probably also related to protecting ourselves during evolution. Faces in adverts that look directly at the viewer are more likely to be clicked on, than faces that are looking at something else e.g. a laptop screen in the advert. Stock photos also perform worse, so create your own.

Lastly businesses need to repeat messages throughout a website, with the main USPs repeated on every page if possible. Grenier said that this is because you will have probably forgotten 80% of this article within two days and you will have already started to forget parts. Just don’t forget to look out for those lions.

The signing of our new clients was covered by Tech Central today. We signed the Waterford based app developers Feed Henry. We’ve also signed up Dublin’s Digital Markerting Institute, which does what it says on the tin and teaches people digital marketing, such as social media, anf web-based PR.

Goldfish.ie nets Feed Henry, Digital Marketing Institute.

8 May 2014 |

Wicklow-based business VoIP provider Goldfish.ie has won contracts to provide telephony services for app developer Feed Henry and the Digital Marketing Institute in Dublin.

Gordon O’Neill, managing director, Goldfish.ie, said: “VoiP is the natural choice for companies like Feed Henry, with more organisations like them starting to realise the benefits. With a cloud-based system they can get a flexible and professional service without all the additional overheads and call costs you get with a traditional phone company.”

Irish Voip firm also had a successful 2013 as revenues up by 77% 2013 and clients increased by 40%

7th May, 2014; Dublin, Ireland: Wicklow-based cloud telecoms firm Goldfish.ie is looking forward to another successful year after being appointed by both Feed Henry, the app development company, and also the Digital Marketing Institute in Dublin (see below). The company continues to operate within the buoyant business-VoiP sector as more organisations move to cloud-based technology for their telephones. With clients increasing by 40% in 2013, leading to a 77% boost in revenue, Goldfish.ie has grown consistently each year since the firm was founded in 2010.

Goldfish.ie is continuing to grow its client base with new organisations in Ireland. More and businesses are realising the amounts they can save with a cloud-based telecoms system. This awareness is growing as more and more areas around the country get access to high- speed broadband. One of our new clients is the Digital Marketing Institute.

Every week on Newstalk, George Hook’s show The Right Hook has a technology slot where the stations resident technology expert Jonathan McCrae reviews new services, gadgets, apps or any aspect of new technology.

This week he talked about setting up a business and some services that were available that can help businesses keep their costs down. He recommended Goldfish.ie for any new firms wanting a low cost business telecoms services. Good old George seemed impressed too!

All companies, businesses, charities, educational establishments and government departments in Ireland, can have access to low cost telephone calls and services without delay. All they need to get lines assigned is a access to broadband internet.

The video below explains how to access Goldfish.ie’s services and take advantage of their low telephone call costs and professional telecoms’ services.

New lines can be assigned immediately, all you need to get up and running is a broadband line. You don’t need anything else, no hardware and no delay waiting for an engineer to come a fit your telephone system. And, when your organisation grows, and you move on, you just unplug your phone and take it, your numbers and existing services with you.